GOP mailer allegedly misrepresents redistricting amendment

Voters First Ohio is not letting Republicans get away with
any dishonesty on Issue 2. In a complaint filed to the Ohio Elections
Commission yesterday, the pro-redistricting reform group claimed a
recent mailer from Republicans contained three incorrect statements.

“In an effort to affect the outcome of the election and
defeat State Issue 2, Republicans have knowingly, or with reckless
disregard of the truth, made false statements in printed campaign
material disseminated to registered voters,” the complaint said.

If approved by voters in November, Issue 2 will place the
responsibility of redistricting in the hands of an independent citizens
commission. Currently, politicians handle the process, which they use to
redraw district boundaries in politically advantageous ways in a
process known as “gerrymandering.” Ohio’s First Congressional District,
which includes Cincinnati, was redrawn by the Republican-controlled
process to include Warren County, which contains more rural voters that
tend to vote Republican, and less of Cincinnati, which contains more
urban voters that tend to vote Democrat.

The Voters First complaint outlines three allegedly false statements
made by the Republican mailer. The first claim is “Some of the members
will be chosen in secret.” As the complaint points out, this is false.
The redistricting amendment on the November ballot will require nine of
twelve members to be chosen in public, and then those nine members will
pick the three final members. All of this has to be done in the public
eye, according to the amendment: “All meetings of the Commission shall
be open to the public.”

The second disputed claim is that
the amendment will provide a “blank check to spend our money” for the
commission. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled against that claim on Sept. 12
when it ruled against Secretary of State Jon Husted’s proposed ballot
language for Issue 2: “The actual text of the proposed amendment does
not state that the redistricting amendment would have — as the ballot
board’s language indicates — a blank check for all funds as determined
by the commission.”

The mailer also claims that, in the redistricting
amendment, “There’s no process for removing these bureaucrats, even if
they commit a felony.” But the amendment says commissioners must be
electors, and when an elector is convicted of a felony, that status is
lost. The complaint says commissioners can also be removed “by a judge
under a petition process that applies to public officials generally for
exercising power not authorized by law, refusing or neglecting to
perform a duty imposed by law, gross neglect of duty, gross immorality,
drunkenness, misfeasance, nonfeasance, or malfeasance.”

The Ohio Elections Commission will take up the complaint Thursday morning. The full complaint can be read here.

Matthew Henderson, spokesperson for the Ohio Republican
Party, called the complaint a "distraction”: “It’s a cheap shot. It’s up
to the Ohio Elections Commission, and they’ll likely throw it out. It’s
essentially a distraction from the real issues. The bottom line is that
Issue 2 is going to create a panel of unelected, unaccountable
bureaucrats, and they’ll have influence over our elections.”

He added, “Ohio voters will be able to decide for themselves this fall whether they want to pay for these commissioners or not.”

When pressed about whether or not the Ohio Republican
Party is sticking to the claims found in the mailer, he said that’s up to the
Ohio Elections Commission to decide.

It is true the independent citizens commission created by
Voters First is unelected, but that’s the entire point. The current
problem with the system, as argued by Voters First, is elected officials
are too vested in reelection to place the district boundary needs of the
public above electoral needs. That’s why districts like Ohio’s First
Congressional District are redrawn in a way that includes Cincinnati and
Warren County — two regions that are vastly different.

Today
a video was posted of Fischer pooping out of his mouth something
about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Fischer said “You’re
going to have the homosexual lobby committing one hate crime after
another against servicemen. This is going to be virtual genocide …
for people of faith.”

Sarah
Palin, who is undecided about running for president, will
accidentally collide with Mitt
Romney when she wheels her “One Nation” tour into New Hampshire
today. Romney, who has announced his intention to run for president,
is scheduled to deliver a speech in Stratham, N.H., and Palin said,
“Maybe we’ll run into him.” Palin, in an interview with CNN
said that New Hampshire voters aren’t particularly special and that
it’s a coincidence that she and Romney are in New Hampshire at the
same time. "I guess that’s that nonpolitician in me not
looking at a New Hampshire voter any differently just because they
have, you know, an earlier primary than somebody else,” Palin said.

Left-leaning
blog cannonfire.com reports that the Weinergate scandal has been
closed because the format of the pee pee picture Anthony Weiner
allegedly sent to coed Gennette Cordova was resized and reformatted,
meaning the New York congressman sent the photo.

“Don’t
act like you’re not impressed.”

Eileen
Heuwetter is pissed her late aunt left the majority of her estate —
around $300,000 — to Family Radio, the group that predicted the
world would end on May 21. Though she knew her aunt Doris Schmitt
loved the radio station and its batshit crazy owner, Harold Camping,
she never guessed that she’d be one of the poor souls to contribute
so much to Family Radio, which made $18 million in 2009 alone.

"This
was not a woman who had anything. She literally had Family Radio on
day and night — she went to bed with it and woke up to it,"
said Heuwetter. "That was all she had." That and about
$300,000. "She would have been devastated," Heuwetter said.
"Listening to him say things would be better in paradise made
her feel better — she totally believed she would leave this world
on May 21, and she needed to believe that." Unfortunately,
Scmitt died alone at the age of 78 on May 2, 2010 in her small home
in Queens, New York.

Camping,
who forgot to mention that his prediction that the world would end
extends to October —factoring in leap year and all that — assures
everyone who gave him money that they will die happy deaths later
this year and anyone who hasn’t given him money can still make a
donation to the Family Radio website.

Let’s start the morning roundup with a truly radical idea: How about using Paul Brown Stadium as a homeless shelter during the roughly 340 nights a year when the Bengals aren’t using it?

That’s just what might happen with the new Marlins ballpark or the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field in Floridaif two state lawmakers have their way. They want to enforce an obscure 1988 Florida law that allows any ballpark or stadium that receives taxpayer money to serve as a homeless shelter on the dates that it is not in use. Sounds like a great idea to us.